Mathematics for Computer science

Hi,
I have just started to study the "The Art of computer programming" by Knuth and I found lot of mathmatics. I want to understand the mathmatics. Can you tell me a book where from I can start learning mathmatics for this book.

For computer science (basically algorithms), you almost won't need calculus. All you'll need is a descent book for discrete mathematics. Even from those books you'll need to understand few topics like combinatorial, probability, number theory (just intro level), set theory, graph theory, basic data structures, asymptotic notations etc.

Below are few authors with good books (I remember them by authors instead of book names)-
C. L. Liu (short and sweet - one of my favorite book)
Tremblay & Manohar (especially good for set and graph theory)
Kenneth Rosen (a heavy dose of discrete mathematics - contains lot of examples and exercises)
Coreman (this is for computer algorithms, but some of basic mathematics is also covered in it)
Lipschutz (very nice treatment to probability and counting - i.e. permutations and combinations)
Knuth (he has written a book for discrete mathematics - I guess the name is 'Concrete Mathematics')

For computer science (basically algorithms), you almost won't need calculus. All you'll need is a descent book for discrete mathematics. Even from those books you'll need to understand few topics like combinatorial, probability, number theory (just intro level), set theory, graph theory, basic data structures, asymptotic notations etc.

As a side story, once, I had to actually implement an algorithm that is based on calculus. We had to control something with discrete values (the number of VmWare VMs), based on something(s) whose value was constantly changing due to lots of factors.

Thanks for the advice. It's been almost 10 years since I left Mathematics(in college) nor was I good at it.Hope you understand my situation.Whatever I study I want to study from the basics then move to the advanced.So, if you could suggest some books on the basics also, it will be very much helpful.

The question remains - what do YOU consider the basics? What level of math are you comfortable with? Arithmetic? Algebra? Geometry? Trig? Calc? Diff-EQ?

If I needed to 'go back to the basics', I personally would start with Calculus. However, if you are shaky on your algebra, you should start there. We can't advise you without getting some kind of idea where you were.

"Mathematics in college" is very different depending on whether you are majoring in drama, engineering, or math.

There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors

deeps sinha
Greenhorn

Joined: Apr 20, 2012
Posts: 26

posted Jul 03, 2012 07:28:40

0

The question remains - what do YOU consider the basics? What level of math are you comfortable with? Arithmetic? Algebra? Geometry? Trig? Calc? Diff-EQ?

I would say I am comfortable with Arithmetic, I have forgotten the rest. I had studied BE in Computer Science(2000-2004)

The question remains - what do YOU consider the basics? What level of math are you comfortable with? Arithmetic? Algebra? Geometry? Trig? Calc? Diff-EQ?

I would say I am comfortable with Arithmetic, I have forgotten the rest. I had studied BE in Computer Science(2000-2004)

To add some color, Fred's listing is not just in a random order. In the US, algebra is learned in the 9th year (the beginning of high school), geometry is learned in the 10th year, trigonometry (now called algebra II) in the 11th year, and finally, calculus (or pre-calculus) to round off high school. This order is specified by the US regents examinations. After that, in University, there really isn't any exact order -- you have calculus, differential equations, statistics, etc., depending on the type of degree you go for.

So, basically...

That list isn't chapters in a book. We are talking about years of study.